Search tools for advancing through information provided in a database have been available for years. Generally, in such applications, a user's responses direct progress through the layers of available information. The interaction follows one of a plurality of pre-set paths along a decision tree, with the user input typically being limited to responses to pre-defined choices. So-called "expert systems," such as searchable on-line medical databases, are navigated via responses to system prompts regarding symptoms which are tied to various diagnoses in a relational database. Interactive on-line catalog sales applications utilize user responses to questions, which may directly or indirectly relate to products in the catalog. The user may indicate his or her interest in defined categories of product information and then be provided with appropriate screens displaying available product from the database. Such systems frequently attempt to direct the information retrieval by first gathering information about the user and the user's needs, before posing specific product questions, thereby establishing the appropriate path along the decision tree in advance.
Shortcomings of available prior art search and query tools include the fact that all users must interact with the system using a limited set of pre-established interactions. Necessarily the pre-established interactions are predisposed toward a particular type of customer and cannot effectively meet the needs of a larger audience of users that may have an interest in the information. In addition, all users must navigate through the pre-set paths and iterations even when the bulk of the information accessible via those paths would not be applicable to that user's needs or to the user's level of familiarity with the available information. The latter shortcoming is particularly significant when one considers provision of product information over the internet. With worldwide access, users from geographically diverse locations will have different requirements on available product sets when interacting with the same catalog. For example, users from North America who are shopping for clothing during December will wish to view a different product set than will users from South America who are shopping for clothing at the same time. In addition, the geographically separated users may well have different interaction communication needs, such as that each user may wish to communicate in his or her native language. Different users will also have different interaction parameters with respect to the level of product detail that they require. For example, when shopping for a camera, a professional photographer will approach the interaction with more detailed specification requirements than will a user who is shopping for a camera as a gift. Finally, the details of the actual display of product information should ideally differ depending upon the user, the user's needs, and the user's knowledge in the area. No currently available systems can accommodate any, let alone all, of the foregoing demands.
Additional drawbacks associated with available on-line interactive information retrieval systems result from the tight coupling of data and applications, mandating that the complex models for the information database (e.g., cross-referencing therein, etc.) must be fully developed before the system can be usable, and are frequently fixed once executed, such that periodic updates cannot be performed. One cannot, therefore, begin operating an on-line interactive catalog and expect to dynamically maintain and extend that catalog while it is in use.
In designing and maintaining an on-line interactive catalog system, today, one must realize that, in the future, robots and computer agents will be operating on the internet, along with human users. The ability to support computer agent interactions should therefore be a major objective of any entity which is providing an electronic catalog.
It is therefore an objective of the present invention to provide an on-line catalog to support diverse shopping needs, including those of multinational, multiple skill level human users as well as computer agent users.
It is another objective of the invention to provide an extensible system to allow system updates to the system's knowledge representation while the system is up and running.
Still another objective of the invention is to provide a system which allows seamless user transitions from one interaction approach to another.
Yet another objective of the invention is to provide a system which can dynamically create and maintain user persona and demographic information in order to present information tailored to the needs of the user.